


2. Coming Home

by veryloudfish



Series: River Ward made me write fanfic [2]
Category: Cyberpunk 2077 (Video Game)
Genre: Angst and Fluff and Smut, Cyberpunk 2077 Spoilers, F/M, can't stop won't stop, extended ending, lots of plot and explaining at first but don't worry i'll never write river without sexy time, my canon post nomad ending, touching on some dark and heavy themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-12 05:00:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28754766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veryloudfish/pseuds/veryloudfish
Summary: Continuing from 1. Aftermath. Post credits, Nomad Ending, V left with Panam to chase her leads. A year later, V finally makes her way back to Night City, and there’s a certain someone on her mind. Exploring an extended ending.
Relationships: Female V/River Ward, V/River Ward
Series: River Ward made me write fanfic [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105454
Comments: 35
Kudos: 101





	2. Coming Home

“Now that I’m here Panam, I don’t know.” I couldn’t even look into the holo at her, and my palms were sweating so much I had to wipe them on my pants for the fifth time since pulling up to the trailer park. 

_“What do you mean, you don’t know? V, this is literally the only thing you’ve been on about for months.”_

“I know, it’s just…It’s been almost a year.”

_“And?”_

“And a year’s a long fucking time.”

_“Believe me, I know. That’s how long I’ve been waiting to get you back here, and you know how much it kills me to watch you walk away from your family.”_

“You’re still my family,” I said quietly. “And this isn’t goodbye. No more goodbyes.” Laughter bubbled up. “Who knows, I might be back to camp in an hour.”

 _“Stop, V. Go see River.”_ Her voice was softer now, the edge gone. _“Just go, okay? And call me. Soon.”_

“Yeah, okay. I will.”

Panam smiled, mouthed go into the holo and hung up.

Leaving me alone. 

I shivered in the midafternoon heat. Alone, well, that was something I hadn’t been in a long time. First with Johnny in my head; I swore I still heard him now and then, or that the way I moved was a little too much like his cocky saunter. But he’d been gone since Mikoshi, giving up his second chance to give me mine. From there, I’d been with Panam and the Aldecaldos. Now, standing here, holo off, mind my own, I was truly alone for the first time in a year. 

Hopefully not for long, but fuck…

I hadn’t talked to River since about a month after I left Night City with Panam. First we texted, sent a few pics back and forth; me of the Badlands, him of the family. We were deep in Arizona, almost to Tucson when I called him. And it hurt, and it was clear it hurt him, too. I tried to tuck away my frustration and anger over his unwillingness to leave with me, but even when I did, he still couldn’t look me in the eye, and that was only on the screen. So I said goodbye a second time then, pretty sure it’d be forever.

Yet here I was. 

I tucked my hands in the Aldecaldos jacket, dirty from the hard road, kicking a rock as I walked past the vendors at the entrance and reached the end curve of dirt road in front of the water tower. I couldn’t help but look up, imagine our feet dangling over the edge, leaning in and…

“V?”

I startled, swinging around and groping at the empty spot on my hip where Lizzie normally rested. I’d left all that in the car, wanting to come here clean.

“Holy shit, it is you,” Randy said, coming up the street behind me and before I could say anything he threw his arms around me. I returned the hug, then he stepped back. “Fuck, I thought you…you know, you died or something.”

“It’s um, it was…complicated.”

“Yeah, that’s what River said when I tried to get him to tell me the damn truth.” He crossed his arms. He looked so much better, filled out since seeing him in that hospital bed, and he seemed healthy, strong. And like he’d been hitting River’s gym. “I’m not a kid, you know, not anymore. Not after…”

When he drifted a bit, I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “I know. Look, I promise we can hash it out over a few beers, alright? I just…”

“Need to see River first, yeah I get it.” Randy grinned a bit. “You’re really back?”

“Yeah. Yeah, Randy, I am.”

“Cool.” He smacked me hard on the back. 

“Ow, what the fuck, man?”

“River is going _shit himself_.” And he dragged me along after him. I knew he was right, one way or the other. 

We were greeted by a screaming Monique and Dorian, who clearly had no idea anything had been wrong at all, both squealing at the top of their lungs that I was here, climbing all over me and man, it felt good, despite the fear radiating through every inch of me. 

The patio door smacked open and there was Joss. She stared at me for a minute before turning back into the doorway. I couldn’t hear her, but the adamant gesture of stay and wait was clear. 

River was there, just inside the trailer. My heart raced and I tried to pull myself together as Joss ate up the space between us, her expression of mix of fury and relief. 

“Mom. Mom, chill okay?” Randy moved to intercept her, but she shoved him out of the way. 

“Quiet,” she snapped at him, and he threw up his hands, glancing at me as if to say I tried. Good luck. “Take the kids to your trailer, okay? And don’t argue with me for once in damn your life, Randy.”

“I’m not arguing! We’re going, okay?” He wrangled Dorian and Monique through their cries of protest, and he finally got them away on promises of Heywood later, as many rounds as they wanted. 

The chatter eventually faded and I was left with Joss, her arms still crossed, her posture stone. It was impossible to look directly at her, but same as Randy, seemed time had given them the healing they deserved. The dark circles and sunken cheeks had faded away and filled in.  
But if she didn’t stop staring at me like she wanted to kill me…

“Jesus, V. It’s been a year. An _entire fucking year_ , and you just stroll back up here like this?” Her words came out in a hot breath, and I couldn’t manage anything around the lump in my throat and the way my eyes burned even when I squeezed them shut and pinched the bridge of my nose. 

When her arms folded around me, I wept against her shoulder, clinging to her with everything I had.

“Hey, hey, stop all that, alright?” She wiped my face, motherly touch of hers on point as she straightened my jacket, ran a hand over my hair. “God, I was set to come ream your ass out from breaking my brother’s heart and here you are as bad off as him.” She hugged me again and I hugged her back, the tide of emotions settling a bit. She sighed. “He never told me the whole story you know, just said whatever you had was terminal. We argued a lot at first, about him not going with you, but it broke him again every time you came up so I had to let it go. For him, you understand.”

“Yeah, Joss, I get it. I’m sorry, you know? I never meant to hurt any of you. I should have never…”

“Oh, bullshit.” She stepped back and waved a hand at me, wiping her own eyes. “Should have never my ass. If my brother wasn’t in love with you the second he met you, saving my son made him completely hopeless. I would have rather have seen you two together, short as it was, then never at all.”

I gave her a ghostly smile. “So did you tell him to wait inside or does he not want to see me?”

Joss laughed. “Girl, he almost fell out the door to see if you were really alive. I made him sit his ass down.” She crossed her arms again, levity fading. “I’m not letting him come out here until you tell me why you’re here. And tell me you’re done dying.”

“If you mean from all the shit from before, me leaving with the nomads and all that, yeah, it’s settled. I’m free and clear.” I exhaled, still strange to say it aloud, to believe it. “Not terminal, not dying.”

“And what are your intentions with my brother?”

She sounded like some dad about to chase off the boys with a shotgun. I would have laughed, but I knew she was serious. I shrugged, looking at my dirty boots. “Depends on him, Joss. Depends on what he wants from me, if anything at all after everything I’ve put him through.”

She grunted. “Ugh, you two are something else. It’s like watching two teenagers, I swear to God. I’ll go get him. Just…just be gentle with him, V.”

I gave her a nervous laugh. “Tell him the same maybe?”

“Mhm.” She hesitated, then gave me a last quick hug. “I’m glad you’re okay, V. No matter what happens.” 

No matter what happens... Made my stomach lurch, but I managed a nod. “Yeah, thanks. Uhm, tell him I’ll be up at the water tower. If that’s okay with you, I mean.”

“Just fucking go already,” she said as she rolled her eyes. “I’m sure he’ll be there in a minute.”

I needed air before that, so I jogged away from her. The door stuck, just like last time, but I climbed over and left the gate open for him. Got to the top, which was littered with empty bottles. I winced, fingers tracing where he’d sat before as I lowered my legs over the edge and stared out into Night City. Tried to appreciate the view from this very spot, a view I never thought I’d see again.

“Thanks, Johnny,” I whispered. Could almost hear him say ‘yeah, sure whatever’, followed by some smartass remark about how I could do better than a former cop, but all the malice was gone from his voice, only affection and genuine desire for me to live and live happily. I thought back to the first time waking up in my apartment to his mug in my mind. Never thought I’d miss the asshole. 

“V.”

I entire body tensed at his voice. River’s voice, after all this time. 

“It’s me,” I answered quietly, unable to keep my voice from shaking. All he responded with was a gruff grunt. Silence followed, cluttering the air between us. I wanted to jump up and grab him but didn’t feel right. Felt nothing like the night be brought me up here.

Eventually I stood when it became clear he wasn’t going to join me. He leaned on the furthest space apart he could, looking away from the city. Away from me.

“Could have holoed before you showed up,” he said.

“Didn’t seem much like you wanted that after the first time I tried.”

When he turned, my breath caught. Everything I remembered and loved about him, right there, and he might as well have been a million miles away. 

“Can you blame me?” he asked.

“No.”

Another long silence. 

“Joss said you’re cured, though she really has no idea what it all means. I never told anyone. Wasn’t mine to tell, you know?”

“Yeah, I get it.” I licked my lips a few times, paced in a small circle. “About calling, I just…for a while I really couldn’t you know? Was out of range for a long time, and I was...And how could I tell you on the holo and not in person? Can I…can I tell you now?”

He still watched the horizon opposite of the city. “Yeah. I’d like to know. To try and understand, but I can’t turn it off, you know?”

“Knowing when people aren’t telling the whole truth?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got nothing to hide from you, River.” I swallowed. “Before, I just…I barely understood what was happening and the last thing I wanted to do was hurt you.” My words fell away when he looked up at me, the grief in his eyes fresh as when he walked away from me at the nomad camp. Not sure what I would have done without Panam there to catch me. It staggered me, feeling like we were there again. “River…”

“Just tell me.”

I sat down because I didn’t trust my legs to hold me up any longer. “Mikoshi, you already know that was the end of Johnny. Alt took him to give me a chance. Panam had leads to check, see if there was anything else to do after Alt told me I only had six months.”

“We’ve covered all that.”

God, his voice was so hard, so fucking cold. I blew out a breath. As much as I wanted him to make this easy for me, I couldn’t fault him from guarding himself. If he’d been anywhere as broken up as I’d been… I cleared my throat. 

“We chased down Panam’s contacts pretty quick, a ripperdoc who had also been a netrunner, some big deal before he left the city. Think he was so fascinated when we told him what happened, he would have helped for free, except he made us agree to pay him with…my remains, if things didn’t shake out.”

I heard him swallow, shift his weight. I went on, the story unstoppable now, to tell him everything I went through to get back here to him alive. “He gave me a pretty rough hack job at first, which slowed some symptoms, and after a few weeks he had a better hold over in place and had managed to satellite link to someone from the corpo wars hiding in Alaska. 

“That was when I called, right before we went off the grid. Didn’t tell you though, didn’t want to give you false hope, but I thought maybe talking again would be…better than it was, I guess.”

Silence again, so I stopped looking at him for approval, stopped listening to his every movement, and told him the rest.

“Was a long haul, getting across the Canadian border then all the way up to the edge. Cold as fuck, too, if you can believe it. And the ex-corpo guy, he was the real deal. I was glad Johnny was…Johnny was gone, didn’t have to see me right back where I started. But you have to understand, I had to try, had to do anything I could to…to…”

“You don’t have to justify yourself. Keep going.”

Still cold. I shivered. “At first he wouldn’t see us, not until Panam blew his security up with the panzer and said he’d talk to us or she’d take him back to NC and sell him to the highest bidder. He said since she had balls of steel, he’d take a look. He seemed impressed by the other runner’s hold over, but had a better one moved into my head our second day there. 

“Then he spent weeks just looking and planning while I watched the days and hours tick by. I thought I was going crazy. I wasn’t sure he was even planning to help, or was he just studying me? Paman, she stayed with me as much as she could, but she still had to lead the family, but surprisingly, everyone was enjoying the new view. I think some of them even wanted to stay in the snow.” I waved a hand. “Anyway, it helped, having her there.”

Having someone there.

“When I was looking at five months gone and starting to panic, he came to me with his plan. He’d need to ice my body and load my engram for back up in case the worst happened.” I shuddered again. “The plan was to replace most of the damaged tissue in my brain and body with cloned material, which he’d been working on since I showed up. Had to pull all my cyberware and augments out, too, give my body a fresh start as much as we could, avoid any corruption and confusion from the relic’s time in my skull. Problem was, he’d be in a race by replacing enough of my body to keep me alive before it ate up more. Bits in pieces in a tank instead of a body for a few, but not dead.”

I closed my eyes. I’d kept them closed the entire time once the ex-corpo – he never did tell me his name – started the process, but I think at one point he had to regrow my eyes anyway. 

“Once it started, he put me in a coma and that was about three months? I think? I was drifting, and Panam told me later I flatlined four times, but they managed to pull be back from the brink each time. And he did it, River, he fixed me. I flatlined again, once last time, and he loaded me back up before I had any more brain damage. Then I just needed time to recover.

“Been weird, having a new body that’s still mine. But not the same. No more ink, for one, but I guess I’ll deal with that later. No augments until I add them back in, though I’m not sure I’m ever going to be ready to stick a shard in my brain again. Otherwise I’m just V, mind still here in a fresh body cloned piece by piece.

“But he did it, River. I had to relearn a lot, walking and talking, but the ex-corpo had a lot of recovery stim, said he used to deal in cloning recovery for the top tier shits back in his time. When I asked him why he was willing to do it again if he’d hated it so much, he said because I wasn’t asking him for an underserved life extension, just a chance to finish my own life. Even if it was my own damn fault for kleping the relic in the first place.”

I looked back out at Night City. “Think about that night a lot still. How if I hadn’t agreed to that job, Jackie’d still be around. I’d probably still be some low end edgerunner, probably not even on your radar when you needed help, so I can only regret it so much.”

“Anyway,” I went on, not waiting for him to respond. “Once I was well enough to travel, we headed south and I kept on with the recovery. Then we got the good news. How the Arasaka corporation imploded after a virus wiped all their assets a few months after we left? And Yorinobu himself had an unexplainable flatline and Hanako disappeared? Maybe Johnny still had a voice out there beyond the Blackwall, or maybe Alt just wasn’t done with them yet. Either way, Arasaka in pieces means no more ransoms on the Aldecaldos or on me. I couldn’t believe I could actually come back to the city clean.” 

I wanted to add and back to you but I couldn’t say it.

“I haven’t talked to Vik yet about augments. Not even sure I could handle a tattoo needle right now. But the ex-corpo gave me all the basics I need to get by when he, um, rebuilt me, so I’ fine for now.” I laughed, the sound thin and sickly. “My old reflexes are coming back though, and Panam insists I’m as good a shot as ever. And the same pain in the ass I’ve always been.

“So yeah, that’s…it. That’s where I’ve been. Once we were back in holo range, I…I tried to call a few times, but…It had been so long and I just…I just figured if I was going to talk to you, after all this shit, it needed to be face to face and not through some damn screen.”

I let the silence hang this time, my throat dry from talking, and I felt worn down to my new bones, but I stood. Moved a bit closer to River and leaned on the rail beside him. He still watched the distance, his face unreadable. 

Finally, he gave me a curt nod. “Thanks for telling me.”

I swallowed a few times. “That it?”

He closed his eyes. “V, losing you almost broke me. Assuming you were dead after six months came and went with no more word? Didn’t matter I let you go, that I made the choice not to go with you, that it was my own damn fault. The only reason I pulled myself off the floor after that was because Joss, Randy and the kids still needed me. The PI work I’m doing was a good reason to hang on, too. Got a reputation now and I’ve saved a lot of kids.”

“That’s great, River.” I meant it. “But…”

“I had to put you away, accept that you were dead and gone, you understand? Now you just show back up? Say, tell him to come to the water tower like that first night we,” his voice hitched and he shook his head. “I had to forget about you. I had to try or I would have drowned.” I reached for him, but he stepped back. “I’m not sure I can reopen this, V. I need…I need time. I can’t just fall head first after you again, I can’t do it again. I need to actually think.”

“Yeah, yeah, alright, I get it.”

“Do you?” The anger was back, but clearly it was masking hurt. I felt the same hurt, like some fancy grief echo chamber. I just wanted to touch him, but I couldn’t reach again, because if he stepped away from me one more time I’d break apart in more pieces than Alaska.

I found a little anger myself. “Yeah, I fucking get it. A little credit please, for how hard it was to walk up to not just you, but your whole fucking family. After them thinking I was dead or at the best, just bailed and left their uncle behind a mess. So you need some time, take it, River.” I wrapped my arms around myself, set to move by him and down the tower, muttering, “At least I have time now.”

He caught my arm, and I tried to dodge him but then he was there, arms crushing around me, my face buried in his neck and smell of him. Like yesterday not a year, and I could feel both our hearts stuttering.

“I’m so sorry for what you had to go through.” He kissed my forehead before he let go and turned his back on me again. “But I need time, V.”

“Okay,” I whispered. “Just don’t string me along, okay?” My voice broke when I said it, and I escaped before anything else could happen, for better or worse.

***

A week and nothing. 

I sat in my old apartment, everything about it the same as the day I left it for Arasaka and never had a chance to come back. Apparently Rogue got an anonymous message, told her everything that happened, maybe Alt at Johnny’s last request. Rogue set up an account to autopay so I didn’t get evicted. She just left it running, even after the six months came and went.

We’d had a beer a few nights ago, ran over all the crazy shit again and thanked each other. She asked me if I was coming back into the biz, told her I didn’t know just yet. Gave her all the gory details of my adventures, mostly because I needed to talk to someone since River wasn’t showing up, and she patted me on the shoulder when I finished my story. Told me she’d get me on my feet, one way or another. Put out her smoke, told me thanks again for giving her the chance to talk to Johnny, and told me to call her for anything, even gigs if I decided on that route. Then left me sitting alone in the Afterlife. 

I ordered Johnny’s drink, then the one Jackie wanted named after him, and then my own, just once, because Claire said she couldn’t keep serving it knowing I was alive. 

Touched base with other contacts, too. Kerry was doing well enough, sad to hear about Johnny, and he offered to teach me to play guitar so we can jam sometime. Told him sure, but he knew I had other things to resolve first. Same as Rogue – there if I needed him.  
Judy cried the whole first holo, just happy I made it, and then distracted me with her road trip adventures. I convinced her Alaska was not worth it. Eventually we talked about River, a few times now, and she texted me every day, multiple times a day. Promised to come see me soon, but wanted to do it out at Panam’s camp instead of the city proper. 

Panam checked in daily as well, but kept everything biz. No mention of River, no mention of when I was coming home, or if. Told me every time she hung up to call if I needed anything, and I could tell it took everything in her power not to push me.

I’d talked to Randy twice, first time to listen to the rant about his uncle being a dumbass for not ‘getting the fuck over his shit’, then the second time to just talk. Seemed like the kid still needed someone to listen, and I could do that. I had time now for all of it. Joss scolded Randy for calling me, but then she did, too. Said River was working through it, in his own way, but didn’t have much to discourage or encourage hope either way. 

I ended up getting some of my ink back, which helped me feel more like myself. Turns out after being taken apart completely and regrown by bits, a tattoo needle was a cake walk. Figured I’d probably go back down tonight, keep grabbing them all back over time, maybe even that dumb ass one Johnny put on my arm when he hijacked me. 

I stood up, stretching, my back sore from sleeping on the couch again. Checked the holo – almost 10 pm, a stupid time to be waking up, but the night in the windows felt easier than the harsh light of day. I cleaned up, showered and brushed my teeth, my mirror fixed by Rogue’s people when she held up my lease account. 

I tossed on a tank and settled into a comfortable pair of jeans, jacket, and tucked Lizzie on my side – unwilling to walk around without a weapon, not in Night City, even if I didn’t plan on sticking my nose anywhere, not yet. Pulled on my boots, stifled a yawn and opened the door.

River stood in the hall, rubbing his forehead. His head jerked up as soon as the door swished open, and we just stared at each other.

“Hey,” I finally said.

“Hey, V.”

“How um…long you been here?”

“Few hours. Trying to knock, but…”

“Oh.” Another silence, bloated and strained. “You wanna…you wanna come in?”

He sighed. “Yeah, I think so. If that’s okay.”

“Yeah, sure. Sure, fine.” I back peddled into the apartment and he followed, his motions tight. The door swished behind him, the system pinging an authorized user inside. 

Shit, he could have let himself in anytime. He knew it, the system would have prompted him when he entered the building and again when he came near the door to her apartment. And he hadn’t even fucking knocked.

I spun in a helpless circle, finally settling on the kitchen unit so I didn’t have to look at him right then. “Want a beer, I can—“

His hands were on my sides, turning me to face him. Gently he moved me, just far enough to press against the wall. Not touching me otherwise, his head angled down, his entire body strung to breaking, the tension radiating from him in waves. Having him so close, my knees wobbled but I steeled myself for anything. 

Hey, I’d almost died, right? I think I actually had died like five times now, technically. I could deal with anything. 

“V…”

I was lying to myself. 

His scent filled the air between us, musky with a bit of sweat and metal. I reached up, touching his face, but he didn’t open his eyes, didn’t lift his face. “Say what you came to say, River.”

“I can’t do this…” He faltered, and I felt like I was floating in that ice bath in Alaska again, disconnected and in pieces, wondering if I’d ever wake up.

But I had. I did. And I wasn’t going to die here in front of him because he didn’t want me anymore. I was strong. I could survive this. 

“Alright, I get it. Preem, yeah?” My voice sounded hysterical, and I tried to duck his arm, but his metal hand clenched into a fist and pressed so hard into the wall, the vacuum plastic cracked.

“Let me finish. Please.”

Everything about the room was closing in, but I owed him this much. I owed myself this closure – just like Panam said: _Can’t wander around on what ifs your whole life now that you have a whole life, V._

All I wanted to do was run away.

“I can’t do this, not knowing what it’s gonna be between us. I can’t deal with any more uncertainty, and I’m not talking about edgerunning or whatever you decide to do now that you’re back – not the dangers we both face because this fucking city is what it is. Talking about us, V.” 

My heart stuttered at the word us, and he finally looked at me, and the longing in his gaze, the intensity of it did make my knees give out. He held me up. 

“If you’re gonna be with me, be mine, I need to know it without question this time, without maybe’s or what-if’s, it has to be ironclad. No running off to solve problems alone, no secrets. Need to be partners, one hundred percent.”

I couldn’t say anything, only stare back, pretty sure I was about to die again, and then he said:

“I want to marry you, V.”

I think I went blind for a second, suddenly sure I was back in the relic, maybe Johnny in control before I died, trying to give me a nice send off before he took the wheel for good. Because this felt like fantasy after everything. That after all we’d been through, the pain and the loss, that he’d come here not to set me loose, not to run, but ask me to give him everything I had instead. Everything I longed for, and more, and I couldn’t even breath to answer him.

His hands took my face, cool chrome on one cheek, his warm skin on the other.

“Valerie,” I whispered, the word barely a sound.

“What?”

“My name is Valerie. I can’t be your wife if you don’t know my whole name.” A shudder ran through my body, everything loose and disconnected as I spoke – wife? _Wife_? – but I finally found my ground again, here, with him. “No secrets, right? Well, that’s it. You know everything about me now, River Ward.”

“You wanna be my wife?” he whispered, his voice going fragile like I’d suggested it in the first place, not him. I opened my eyes, his face inches from mine, and suddenly, there it was, the look that made me fall apart in his arms. And a weaker version of his smirk, trying so, so hard to find his lips.

“Yeah, babe, I really fucking do.”

Then his mouth was on mine, and _fuck_ , I was falling into him. Moaning into his lips, his body crushing mine, hands gripping my face so hard it hurt. Then he pulled back, forehead against mine, his breath ragged and broken. I slid a hand around the back of his neck, nails grazing his skin, shivering as he quaked under my barest touch. 

“I need you,” he whispered into my neck, the ache in his voice undoing me completely.

All I could manage was: “ _Please._ ”

And we were kicking off shoes, stripping off each other’s pants, in seconds naked from the waists down, and when I touched him, he bucked into my hand with a groan that sent my head spinning all over. I didn’t care, didn’t care about anything else, just have him as close as humanly possible, and that was inside me, _now_.

He clearly felt the same, hoisting me up against the wall with a sharp jerk, hands gripping my ass so hard it was definitely going to bruise, and I didn’t care, only wanted more, all of him, my legs hooking around him and he was inside of me, all at once, in one firm thrust.  
We both cried out, neither of us moving, just struggling to breath at all. His head pressed against my shoulders, his entire body shaking.

“Valarie,” he groaned against my skin, his lips sending shockwaves across my nerves and I could only whine as he started to move, slowly for a few heartbeats, then faster and faster, then he moaned so loudly my heart almost stopped. “God, _fuck_ , V, I can’t…”

“Then don’t,” I gasped the words. 

That moan again from him, fuck, fuck, I was going lose it just from that sound, and felt him swelling and shuddering inside me as he struggled to hold me up and keep moving, and then it was hot release for him and he clung to me like he’d never let me go, never again.  
Still pinned to the wall, every muscle in my body quivered, but then he lowered us to the floor with care, cradling my head. I whimpered when he slipped out of me, but his body was warm and every touch made my back bend to meet him. He ripped his shirt off, helped me out of mine with no less force.

His breath was heavy, his hand coming to cup my breast, fingers teasing my nipple before his tongue drew small circles, his breath hot and heavy. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “Couldn’t…control myself.”

“Mmm,” was all I managed.

“You weren’t helping.”

I smiled, eyes closed, hips arching as his lips moved down my stomach. “Mmmm….”

Then his mouth was on me while his fingers, one, two, three, slipped inside, not nearly as good as him, but I’d have him again. Before long I was rolling, voice hoarse as I screamed for him, toes curling and everything in that moment exaggerated by feeling him moan back against me as he ravaged me with his lips and tongue and fingers.

“Please, I need you again,” I whined; it sounded so pathetic but the way he looked as he climbed on top of me, the danger in that look, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ I was melting before he touched me, and then he slipped back in, harder than before. “ _River_ …”

A grunt against my neck again as he lifted my hips against his, one arm slipping under my back, a hand sliding all the way up to tangle in my hair and give a tug. 

“Don’t start that, not yet,” another groan through the words, teeth at my skin. “Don’t make me come again, V, damn it, I want to you feel you come around me first.”

I bit my lip as he took the hand I had on his cheek and slipped it to where our bodies met. When I touched myself, a moaned slipped out, and his entire body quaked, and he slowed, slowed all the way down, every stroke an elongated, drawn out motion. I looked up at him when he pulled back from kissing me, his forehead knit in concentration, sweat on his skin, his eyes drinking me up. 

“Fuck,” I muttered, closing my eyes to try and muster the strength to look at him again. “Fuck, River when you look at me like that…”

“Like this?” he whispered. And I opened my eyes, and there it was, the quivers and tingling starting all over, his movements responding, faster and deeper. “Hmm must be,” he said with a throaty chuckle when I didn’t answer.

And I couldn’t, I couldn’t do anything but come for him again, around him, and he didn’t stop, didn’t slow. He grabbed my chin and I opened my eyes again, looking at the man I loved, it fucking hurt how much I loved him. He’d chosen me when he could have walked away, and I lost it completely, pretty sure I was actually crying as the orgasm utterly destroyed me. There wasn’t time to linger because he was losing himself, too. He clawed at my skin and surrendered himself with a cry which almost made me come a third time.

We didn’t move. I’m not sure either of us could. But the trepidation, the fear, suddenly peeled back, everything I’d been carrying since leaving on the road with Panam, daring to hope there’d be a chance for this. To be with him, to be alive with him. 

I laughed. It bubbled out of me, the most ridiculous giggle. 

Still panting, River nuzzled into my neck before asking, “What exactly is funny?”

I giggled again, lacing our fingers together. Kissed him when he propped himself up over me. “I think I can safely say ‘best sex’ now.”

“Just getting started,” he said as he kissed me again, and I felt the playfulness underneath. “Gonna make love to you for the rest of my life.”

“Preem,” I whispered.


End file.
